Sure, I'm home today (I hope), so I'm glad to. It's an
ESAB Rogue 180i.
I spent a lot of time researching because I do use some 6010 rods in addition to 7018, and the cellulose-fluxed rods like 6010 don't run as well on small machines. They need a lot of OCV (open circuit voltage) to run. It's pretty easy to find a small portable machine if all you need to run on it is 7018. The old Miller Maxstar 150's were good for that and weigh what...12 lbs maybe? But they couldn't keep a 6010 arc going. So ESAB's older small machine is a 161LTS or something like that, and it has a great reputation for running cellulose rods, but I never got to run one. This 180i is newer and with an upgraded high end output which I may have use for.
Like most welders on 110V, 3/32" 7018 is about as far as you can go on 110V, and IMO that's iffy because most factory specs that show 90A or so of output are showing an input over 20A, sometimes 24A or more....I'd imagine very few homeowners are going to get enough current to truly weld with useful penetration out of their 15A or 20A breakers.
So to actually weld with any degree of seriousness, you need to run on 220V. The 180i includes an adapter cord that's really odd and I'm surprised hasn't generated any lawsuits....it's a 220V male plug with a 110V female. So a stupid person could plug that cord into a 220V outlet, forget they had done that, and then connect pretty much anything 110V into the other end of it. Again, it's a great idea for people with a brain. Miller, OTOH, has a cord that allows you to swap male ends for 110V and 220V operation. It's expensive and should be available as a 50' extension cord vs just a short adapter whip, but it eliminates the aforementioned stupidity.
Like basically every other stick machine, the 180i also TIG capable because it's a CC (constant current) power source. Obviously the cheap / small stick machines with tapped outputs are not at all ideal for TIG because they lack a continuous current adjustment, but this one is continous and does have a TIG setting. It also has a receptacle for a remote current adjustment control (not included) which is nice for TIG.
The 180i is advertised as weighing 18 lbs. That's the bare box. Shipping weight was probably another 10 or 15 lbs because it uses decently heavy leads. The leads use the Dinse style connectors which are not really standard in the industry (most of us use large Tweco twist-locks), but adapters are available so that I could technically also use my long leads with this little power source. Which I never plan to do BTW.
The 220V input cord is the NEMA 6-50 standard for welding. This machine could never draw 50A, but it'll operate from a standard welding outlet which is good and which means that all of my 220V extension cords will work.
That's what I know so far. If I finish my many busy tasks today, some of which include bumming around on the sofa, I'll report back on how it welds. Maybe another thread would be better; I do hate to hijack.